Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

Chapter 940: The Embers Settle

Under the shadow of Elenaria’s protection, the queen had slain the enemies of her people. About eight hours from that time, Raven arrived at the dark sand beach, soon accompanied by Grace, who led him and his party further into the city while the soldiers and the people of the two kingdoms, most affected Alliance and Eclanor, were allowed to get out of the tridents and stretch their feet.

It was by no stretch a happy reunion between feet and ground. Loss lingered in the heart, and the touch of hell stuck to their bodies, smelling of sulfur. But not all remained by the beach, nor did they go along with Raven. Helga was one amongst many such, rushing off to the island of Aranuvia to check up on her daughters. The leaders of the rebel clans left not long behind her, and so did the bunch of soldiers who’d hailed from Aesteradia.

A single trident was spared for the bunch, but with everyone back on the ground, one of those ships was more than enough. Not that the hero would miss the temporary loss of a single ship, after all, there were far too important matters to discuss than whatever the relief efforts the soldiers had decided to hurdle without any explicit orders.

Sitting in a room inside the dark castle, Raven instead listened to Mono’s retelling of what had happened while the only free survivor of the assault on Eclanor stood beside her, gagged with a piece of cloth. Staring at the woman, Raven wanted to crush her very skull, but barely held himself back. Not being able to fight the sneaky assaults himself, the bridge of his patience was as thin as a hair’s breadth.

"And she’s alive, why?" His gaze shifts to Mono, the queen’s; however, turns to Kledia.

"You can have her; I do not need another demi-dragon. One should be enough for Athenia’s body, as for her," with a sigh, Mono looks to her front. "You have your ways to make people obedient, don’t you? I’ve had enough betrayals from my own people for one lifetime, so you do whatever it is that you wish to do. Try not to kill her, though; her body is more valuable than all the gold in Athenia."

"I wouldn’t trade an apple from there for someone like her," as bitter as he was, Raven raised from his chair and walked towards the gagged half dragon. The woman’s gaze shifted frantically, but the shackles on her feet kept her from making any unnecessary movement. "But fine, I’ll put her to some good use."

Grabbing her face, Raven closed his eyes and tried to breach the mind of the woman. To no surprise, as chosen, her mind was shielded by the god Wolcenya, rendering his efforts moot. While she struggled under his grip still, the hero tried to alter her memories, but even that seemed to fail, and that’s when he decided to do the only thing he could to make the woman utterly subservient.

A memory bloomed in Kledia’s mind as Raven fed her lies–the memory of her falling in love with, at first glance, instead of the fear that she’d just felt. Blushing red as his hand was pressed to her face, she gasped behind the gag and tried not to look at him directly. Upon the hand’s removal, she took a lone glance at her new crush–something she would’ve developed either way had the fear of death not been looming above her.

"Stand outside, I have much to discuss with the queen," Raven ordered, and as much as Kledia was stunned by his masculinity, the woman nodded and made her way outside without a peep or a complaint.

Left alone with his party and Mono, Raven settles down in his chair once more. The room’s air remained heavy with tension, and the queen had a few questions of her own.

"Elenaria plans to attack the council gods in their next meeting. A response to what happened yesterday." Leaning forward, Mono tapped the glass table in the middle. "But first, what’s this about you guys infiltrating Nerva’s lair? I need to know because we both can’t be agitating gods at the same time and risk leaving the kingdoms undefended."

Instead of an answer, Raven turned around and glanced over at Moeria. His eyes narrowed at the woman housing herself in Mono’s true body.

"Y-yes, I told her. But only because I think I’m ready to find the lair with Athenia’s help." Taking a pause to swallow, she stepped forward. "And now with Malefista willing to give us a general direction, I think it’s time for us to prepare for it."

Holding her hand in Mono’s direction, she added.

"She probably needs to know, so I told her."

"Whatever..." Sparing himself the energy that would’ve been spent on reprimanding her, Raven instead focused on the queen. "We do this first, and then you can do what you want with Elenaria later. Aurora is still with Nerva, and so are my kids, and I’m not stopping for you to be done with whatever she’s trying to pull with this stunt."

"Agreed, I didn’t wanna go ahead before consulting you anyway; not after what we talked about last time." A brief smile took over the queen’s lips, and she extended a friendly hand to the hero. "Any help you need, remember that I still have the blueprints to that god-killing machine that I was building a while ago."

Her words gave the hero and his party a moment’s pause. Not everyone was aware of the crab-like tankish creation that Mono had been working on before the arrival of the Twin. Alas, seeing how sense had returned to her, Raven took her hand.

"Your Twin was complaining to me about not putting her in harm’s way after the attacks inside the Trident," shaking her hand, Raven remembered his recent meeting with Mercedes and the twin. "Maybe you can extract the mana bomb’s energy from inside of her to fuel that thing? She seems to want to get rid of it for her own sake."

"That would be perfect," the queen’s smile was quickly washed as a question arose in her head. "You do remember the promise you made to her, right? To restore her world to its former glory from the ashen remains of the wars? How are you gonna do it? Now that we’re extracting the energy from her, she might wanna know more."

Pulling his hand back, Raven’s expression hardened once more.

"I will figure something out. Maybe with Razor’s help or when Athenia makes us demi-gods, but I swear to uphold my promises, no matter to whom I’ve made them."

"I sure hope that your assurance is enough for her."

With a silent nod, the meeting came to an end. However, not too long a meeting, a curious news came from Alliance of all places. Falling into Regalia’s ears and forcing her to abandon everything else and get to Raven!